


Area girl, 14, uncovers plot

by Bitterblue



Series: 52 prompts in 52 weeks [2]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-15
Updated: 2016-01-15
Packaged: 2018-05-14 03:59:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5728828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bitterblue/pseuds/Bitterblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the 52 prompts in 52 weeks. This week: a story about rising to a challenge. Piper backstory.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Area girl, 14, uncovers plot

If there is a better way to do this, Piper can't imagine it. _(Local girl, 14, papers town with wanted posters after the disappearance and presumed death of her whistleblowing father._ ) The homemade glue sticks more to her fingers than it does to the rusted corrugated iron walls of the buildings in the town, leaving streaky prints on the posters. She hopes it won't make the ink run—it's hard to guess how stable ink made mostly from charcoal might be.

As she works, she drafts the stories she could tell about this night, this week, this month, this lifetime. ( _Area man gives daughter, 6, a collection of half-destroyed books and comics, inadvertently inspires career in dead field of journalism._ ) There is the longer story of being alone in the world, one she knows won't interest anyone in this town (or anywhere else) because it's got nothing new about it. She's not the first person to be orphaned, though she'd do her best to be the last if she thought it would make a difference, and at least she's old enough to take care of herself and Nat. There's the shorter story of her father, trying to raise two kids alone in this small settlement, finding out about a plot to let raiders in and refusing to let anyone die for greed. ( _Area man uncovers sinister scheme by suspicious superior to allow ravening raiders in for a cut of the profits._ ) There is the story about his fears and his worries and his death. _That's_ the one she's going to make sure gets told.

It's nearly midnight when she's done. The only other people out and awake are the handful of guards keeping watch over the walls to the town. As she creeps past them, Piper wonders if they are like her father was, if they would stand up for what's right, or if they're in on the deal he'd uncovered and will make out like bandits. _As_ bandits. ( _Settlement destroyed by raiders in night-time ambush that leaves traders baffled. "It had so many guards. One of them must have been a traitor. Maybe a few."_ ) So few of the guards had seemed to believe her when she'd come in demanding the truth a few nights back. She doesn't want to find out the hard way these were the men who laughed her out of the command post.

Glancing back over her shoulder before ducking into the small house she now shares only with Nat, she takes in the lines of carefully written posters on every flat surface outside. Even if the guards try to destroy them, there are too many to be fully removed. Piper yawns, and heads to bed. Morning will come either way. She'd be better off rested.

( _Daughter of murdered guard, saves settlement by exposing tangled web of lies to allow raiders inside for a cut of the profits. After Piper Wright, only 14, tried to report her father's questionable death and presumed murder to one of his superior officers in the militia but was turned away without restitution or even acceptance of her grievance. Further digging revealed a deeper plot. Using old-fashioned pamphleting techniques, she convinced the people of the settlement of the militia's crimes. They drove the traitorous commander out. When questioned, Ms. Wright offered this statement, "Most people will do what's right, and if they won't, the paper will uncover them."_ )


End file.
